One's Favourite Programme On The Telly

 (L-R: Trixie, Cynthia, Jenny and, of course, Chummy)

Whew! Chummy didn't die! What a relief! Of course, if she had died, the producers would have been confronted by millions of angry fans making like peasants with pitchforks.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you haven't seen "Call The Midwife," the period drama from England that ended its second season on PBS last week.

It's about a group of young nurse/midwives and the Anglican nuns of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent in London's impoverished East End, during the early 1950s, right after universal health insurance was established. The nurses are initially appalled by the horrible conditions their patients have to live in, but they come to admire them for their perseverance and dignity.

After two seasons, the characters have become like old friends to us fans. There's the deeply spiritual but also extremely practical Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter); the blunt, earthy Sister Evangelina (Pam Ferris); the dotty Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt), who might be losing it but might be doing it on purpose just to aggravate Sister Evangelina; and the sweet, earnest Sister Bernadette (Laura Main), the only nun who is the same age as the lay midwives.

The midwives include the pretty, idealistic Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine, with voice-over narration by Vanessa Redgrave playing Jenny as an old woman); the flirty, optimistic Trixie (Helen George) and the shy, sensitive Cynthia (Bryony Hannah).

But the breakout star of the series is nurse/midwife Camilla Fortescue Cholmeley-Browne (played by the marvelous Miranda Hart), known as "Chummy" to her friends.

Belittled by her aristocratic family, Chummy is crippled by shyness and lack of self-confidence. Her great height and physical clumsiness are part of the problem, but one suspects (that’s the way Chummy talks) a loveless childhood spent in boarding schools hurt, too.

But she is eternally good-humored and exceptionally kind, and she soon finds her true family in the nurses and nuns at Nonnatus House.

She also finds true love in the person of an ordinary working-class street cop whom she marries to the horror of her aristocratic family and the delight of her new friends. And, for the first time in her life, she thrives.

It's hard to express how much the fans of this show adore Chummy. She's the classic ugly duckling who blossoms into a swan, and it's a moving thing to watch.

So when word filtered out that Chummy's own pregnancy  was going to have a life-threatening complication – the same thing that killed Lady Sybil in "Downton Abbey" – we all went into a panic. Life without Chummy was too horrible a prospect to contemplate.

But we needn't have worried. The producers were too smart for that. Not only did they let her live, they threw in a resolution to the Sister Bernadette/Dr. Turner will-they-won't-they relationship that was the most romantic scene I have ever seen.

The series is based on the true-life memoirs of Jennifer Worth, after whom the character of Jenny Lee is modeled. Worth died on May 31, 2011, almost exactly two years ago. But the stories and characters she gave us will live forever.

Season three is already in production and will air on PBS in early 2014. In the meantime, do yourself a big favor and rent seasons one and two from Netflix. You'll thank me for it.

The Grammar Police Strike Again!

If you've ever been on Facebook, you know that the grammar police are out in full force. And now they've moved from the virtual world to the real one.

Case in point: Mr. Mopps' toy store in Berkeley, which for months has had a sign on its front door reading, "Push it good" – a cultural reference to a 1987 rap song by Salt-N-Pepa.

Wouldn't you know it? Last week somebody posted a second sign next to the first, reading, "'Push hard.' 'Push good' is not good English. Kids must learn good English. Thanks."

In other literary news, congrats to Cal's University Librarian, Tom Leonard, for winning the New Yorker's weekly cartoon caption contest No. 371.

The cartoon shows a mouse holding a gun on a cat, who is speaking. Leonard's winning caption: "Six rounds. Nine lives. You do the math."

The prize doesn't include a free parking place on campus. (For that, you have to win a Nobel Prize, confirming former UC President Clark Kerr's famous observation that "The main preoccupations on campus are sex for the students, parking for the faculty and football for the alumni.)

But he will get a framed copy of the cartoon, including his caption, signed by the artist, Joe Dator. According to contest rules it's worth $250, and Leonard is responsible for any tax obligations.

Since the contest began in 2005 it has attracted many thousands of entries from would-be humorists, including the late film critic Roger Ebert, who entered 107 times and won once.

But Leonard cautions not to expect a repeat performance from him anytime soon.

"I'd have to be inspired again," he says. "But I'm not quitting my day job."

By the way, Leonard knows a thing or two about cartoons himself. He's written a biography of the greatest cartoonist of them all – Thomas Nast, the man who created the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey.

Finally, May has been a mixed month for the City of Oakland.

On one hand, the city is going through police chiefs like facial tissues – three in one week, at last count. And the Warriors are threatening to desert their loyal fans for the fleshpots of San Francisco.

On the other hand, Oaktown was chosen by the travel website Movoto as "The Most Exciting City In America." (And to rub salt in the wounds of those snobs across the Bay, San Francisco placed a distant third.)

The criteria included museums, bars, movie theaters, music venues and theater companies per square mile (the more the better); big box stores and fast food restaurants per square mile (the fewer the better); and park acreage per person.

The two final criteria were population diversity – the smaller a city's majority race, the higher the score – and percent of population between 20 and 34 years old.

"We aren't saying older people are boring," says Movoto. "But a younger population does tend to be more excitable."

Sure, Oakland has problems. But it also has great weather, beautiful buildings, and some of the nicest and most creative people in the world.

"When we think of an exciting place to live, we think about places were there is always something to do, whether it's eating at new restaurants or jogging through a park," says Movoto. "That sounds a lot like Oakland."

To read the full study, visit Movoto's website at http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/10-most-exciting-cities/

Rock On, Girls!

Hey, girls. Remember the column I wrote last March about an upcoming event at Berkeley High called JazzGirls Day?

A lot of you took me up on it, and apparently you had the time of your lives. I got email after email, from both kids and parents, and they couldn't stop raving about the experience.

"It was awesome!" said one girl.

"I thought I was the only girl who liked jazz," said another. "It was so great to find out I'm not alone."

Well, if one day was so much fun, how'd you like to do it for a whole week?

Many of the same musicians who taught at JazzGirls Day will also be teaching at the 5^th annual Jazzschool Girls' Jazz & Blues Camp, which will take place at the Jazzschool in downtown Berkeley from August 5-9. And every teacher is a woman who is making a professional career in jazz.

"That's important," says the camp director, saxophonist/drummer Jean Fineberg, co-founder – along with trumpeter Ellen Seeling - of the Montclair Women's Big Band and the Girls' Jazz Camp. "Girls need role models to make them realize that they can do it, too."

And that can be very empowering.

"My daughter LOOOVED camp and is now confident enough to join her school jazz band," said one mom.

A grandmother said, "My granddaughter came home excited and happy every day and now sees herself as a musician as a place in the world."

The camp runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, Aug. 5-9, with a concert, when the girls show off all the stuff they've learned, on Friday, Aug. 9, at 6 p.m.

One of the highlights of each day is the lunch break, when the teachers and students get together in the courtyard for a jam session.

Tuition: $450 if you pay before June 1, $475 afterwards. Some financial aid may be available. If you're an out-of-towner, housing with a local family may be available, too.

All girls grades 6 through 12 are eligible. All you need is some proficiency on your instrument – except singers, who can be newbies – and a desire to develop your skills in a fun environment with other girls.

The first step is registering online at jazzschool.org/girlsreg, where you'll find more information and tell them about your elective preferences.

Then call the Jazzschool at 510-845-5373 to pay and reserve your spot. You'll be contacted to schedule a short, friendly audition (voluntary for singers) to evaluate your skill level and place you in appropriate ensembles, including jazz, blues/soul and Big Band.

You'll also be offered a choice of electives, including improvisation, percussion, Latin music, pop music choir and songwriting.

Finally, each camper will be given a 30-minute private lesson.

Don't be scared by the prospect that you might not know anybody going in. On Monday morning Fineberg always says, "Everybody who doesn't know anybody raise your hand." And almost every hand in the room goes up.

But by Friday, those strangers will have formed lasting friendships based on mutual interests and mutual support. And that can be a real eye-opener.

"After I played my solo, all the girls in the band clapped for me," said one girl after last year's camp. "AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ANY OF THEM!"

How Tweet It Was!

(Gabe, James and Eli. Photo by Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group)

They squawked. They chirped. They cackled. And when the feathers finished flying Gabe Bolio, James Clifford and Eli Nash walked away with the Leondard J. Waxdeck Trophy on Friday night as the winners of the 48^th Piedmont High School Bird Calling Contest.

Gabe, James and Eli, all juniors, wowed the judges with their rendition of Tympanuchis cupido, the Greater Prairie Chicken. Senior Dina Zangwill placed second with her call of Gavia stellata, the Red Throated Loon. And sophomores Becca Havian, Jo Ireland and Amy Kelleher finished third with a spirited mating call of Falco rusticolus, the Gyrfalcon.

All three acts will fly New York later this month to appear on "The Late Show With David Letterman," continuing a tradition dating back to 1997 on the Letterman show and another 16 years before that on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson."

The evening was a double triumph for Eli, who also served as co-host for the event with his friend, Alec Sieben, who competed as well with fellow juniors Zane Haney and Brian Lee, peforming the call of Grus Americana, the Laughing Gull.

Before the curtain went up Eli and Alec were asked how it felt to be both co-hosts and rivals at the same time.

"We respect and admire each other as hosts," said Eli, "but we despise each other as competitors."

The evening also featured a singing quartet of Lucy Faust, Sofia Gotch, Apryl Hsu and Nako Narter, who diverted the standing-room-only audience with a do-wop rendition of "Rockin' Robin" while the judges – author Kelly Corrigan, retiring Piedmont Middle School principal Jeanne Donovan and retiring Piedmont High School English and Public Speaking teacher Janet Labberton – reached their decision.

The crowd also viewed a rare video of the Piedmont bird ballers' very first appearance on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson" in 1976, followed by a surprise appearance by Carson's nephew, Jeff Sotzing, who presented principal Richard Kitchens with a framed poster from the 1990 contest, which Waxdeck, the contest's founder, gave to Carson.

"It hung on the wall in Johnny's office until he retired, then it hung in his home until he died," said Sotzing. "Then it passed to me. But I think it's time it came back to where it came from."

Kitchens promised it will hang in a place of honor at the school, right next to the Waxdeck Trophy itself.

The bird calling contest began in 1963 as a class project in Waxdeck's biology class after one of his students asked him, "Wax, can we do something to liven things up here?"

The first competition, held in Waxdeck's classroom at lunchtime, drew only a handful of spectators. But its popularity mushroomed, and it had to be moved to the school's Alan J. Harvey Theater, where it quickly became the hottest ticket in town.

In 1976 Johnny Carson began hosting the bird callers on his show for the next 16 years.

"It was huge," said history teacher Ken Brown, who has been the contest's faculty advisor for the past four years. "I remember being a teenager back in the '70s and watching the bird callers every year on 'The Tonight Show.' When I finally got hired to teach here, I thought, 'This is the place!'

Carson retired in 1992, and Waxdeck died suddenly from a heart attack two years later. It looked like the bird calling contest had run its course.

But the students refused to let it die. They resurrected the competition in 1995 and asked Carson's successor, Jay Leno, to host the bird callers on "The Tonight Show."

Leno, who was still trying to get out from under Carson's shadow, turned them down. But Letterman, who adored Carson, was glad to have them on his show. And there they have appeared ever since.

The students will fly to New York on May 20 and appear on "The Late Show" the next night, May 21.

And the contest's future is assured. Sitting in the second row and having the time of their lives were Eli's sister Emily and her friends Molly Szczech, Addie Christensen and Amelia Eldridge, all eighth graders at Piedmont Middle School who will enter Piedmont High next year.

"We're going to enter the contest together!" said Amelia. "We've already started practicing!"

Go For Broke

(Above: Lawson Sakai at the American cemetery in Epinal, France, visiting the graves of his friends who never came back.)

Next Monday, May 6, the Giants will celebrate their annual Japanese Heritage Night at AT&T Park by having Lawson Sakai throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Sakai, 89, is a veteran of E Company, Second Battalion, 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, the Japanese American World War II regiment that was awarded more medals, man for man, than any other military unit in American history.

"We are proud to recognize and honor America’s Nisei veterans of World War II," says Shana Daum, Giants vice president of public affairs and community relations. "Mr. Sakai represents the members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team who made incredible sacrifices to protect our freedoms."

Four of those medals – all Purple Hearts – went to Sakai, for grievous injuries suffered in combat. He was actually wounded a fifth time, but he refused to let his name be put up for another medal because he didn't think his wound was serious enough.

This will be the first pitch he has thrown since Dec. 7, 1941, when he played third base for Compton Junior College. On that day he was listening to a pro football game on the radio when the broadcast was interrupted by a breathless announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Irate, he marched down to the local Army recruiting office the next day to enlist. To his shock, he was told that he was no longer an American. He was now classified 4-C – "Enemy Alien," even though he was born right here in the USA.

The next thing he knew, he and his family were rounded up, along with more than 110,000 other Japanese Americans, and sent to euphemistically-named "relocation camps" out in the boondocks of Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Arizona, where they spent the war behind barbed wire, where guards with machine guns were ready to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

Despite this, he and thousands of other Japanese Americans volunteered to fight for the country that did this to them.

During another time of national crisis - the Revolutionary War - Thomas Paine wrote, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country. But he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Lawson Sakai and his band of brothers in the 442 were winter soldiers. Their country may have betrayed them, but when their country needed them most, they kept the faith. And they deserve our love and thanks.

Every year on Armed Forces Day - the third Saturday in May – the men of E Company meet at Roberts Park in Oakland for a memorial service honoring their comrades who never came back. And, once again, they invite you to join them.

Roberts Park is easy to find. Just take Skyline Boulevard and follow the signs for the Chabot Space & Science Center. About a mile before you get to the Center, you'll see a turnoff to Roberts Park on your right.

Go though the first parking lot to the second parking lot beyond it, and you'll spot me and a bunch of other people. We'll gather there and then walk about a hundred yards or so into the park to the site of the service.

The ceremony will start at Noon. See you there.

It All Started With Eliza

If you've been reading this column for a while, you know that I'm an animal lover, especially cats.

But what you probably don't know is that I used to hate cats.

No kidding. They're aloof and unfriendly, right?

Wrong, of course. That's the telltale sign of somebody who's never met a cat.

But that all changed 35 years ago when I fell in love with a woman who had a cat. It was a pretty little black and white female named K.C. (short for kitty cat).

For the first six months we lived together, I refused to let the cat into our bedroom.

But one day K.C. decided enough was enough, and she proceeded to seduce me.

Wham! It didn't take her 24 hours to have me wrapped around her little paw. By the time my girlfriend and I broke up a few months later, K.C. and I were so tight, she offered to give her to me.

But by then I had learned enough about cats to know that K.C. would be happier with her, so I declined. But the damage was done: I was hooked.

Moral: There's no zealot like a converted sinner.

Two weeks after I moved into a new place, there was a knock on my door. Standing on the front step were four little urchins from the elementary school across the street, holding a tiny gray female tabby kitten they had found abandoned on their schoolyard.

"Mister, did you lose this kitty?" they asked.

"No," I said, "but I'll take her."

That happened on this day in 1979. I named her Eliza Doolittle because the first thing she said to me was "Aaoowwww!" We were together for almost 17 years, and she made every day a joy. She was the love of my life (four-footed-version).

After Eliza died I adopted a gray female kitten, whom I named Nelly.

She was as sweet as can be, but it became quickly obvious that she needed a playmate. So I adopted another kitten and named her Phoebe.

The two of them got along well enough, but about five months later Nelly got outside and was killed.

Phoebe mourned bitterly for about 20 seconds, and then suddenly I could see the light bulb go "click!" above her head.

"Hey, this is great!" I could see her thinking. "All this to myself!"

Phoebe and I were together for 15 years until I finally had to put her to sleep last spring, and I cried many bitter tears.

Then last August I adopted my Pizza Girls, Sally and Pepe (named after the two iconic pizzerias in New Haven, Connecticut, where I went to college). I love them a lot, and they love me, too, and we couldn't be happier.

But it all started with Eliza. As much as I love my Pizza Girls, I still think of her every day, and I still miss her.

The only reason I hope Heaven is real is because I'd like to see Eliza and my other cats again.

But I'm not holding my breath. As Mark Twain said, "If you go to Heaven, leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, the dog would go in and you would stay out."

And that goes for cats, too.

Cat Video Festival Comes To Oaktown

(Above: Dusty the Klepto Kitty. Photo by Jean Chu)

More than 5,000 cat lovers are expected to descend on Oakland's Uptown district on May 11, when the city hosts the Bay Area premiere of the Internet Cat Video Festival.

Eighty videos of cats doing what they do best - being cute – will be projected in high definition by a 15,000-lumen projector onto the Great Wall of Oakland, a giant100-foot-by-100-foot wall on West Grand Avenue between Broadway and Valley Street.

"There's something going on in our culture were cats are really hot right now," says Issabella Shields, the Great Wall's Executive Director. "Instead of watching cat videos secretly in your cubicle by yourself and feeling guilty for wasting time at work, this is your chance to watch them outdoors with your friends."

Shields expects the festival to draw a diverse audience, including "Internet addicts, families who have cats of their own, and hipsters who think cat videos are ironic."

The festival, which began last year at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, will feature 80 of the most popular felines on the Web, including the Surprised Kitten, Henri the Existential Cat, and Dusty the Klepto Kitty, whose larcenous ways earned him an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman.

"They flew us back to New York for the show," says Dusty's owner, Jean Chu of San Mateo. "Dusty flew business class; I flew coach."

Dusty will make a personal appearance at the festival together with some of his ill-gotten gains, which include 16 car wash mitts, seven sponges, 213 dish towels, seven wash cloths, five towels, 18 shoes, 73 socks, 100 gloves, one pair of mittens, three aprons, 40 balls, four pairs of underwear, one dog collar, six rubber toys, one blanket, three leg warmers, two Frisbees, one golf club head cover, one safety mask, two mesh bags, one bag of water balloons, one pair of pajama pants and eight bathing suits.

The videos, which begin at sundown, will be preceded by a festival starting at 3 p.m. that will include live bands playing cat-themed music, an "arts and cats" area featuring cat-themed works by local artisans, local food trucks, and animal rescue groups with cats and kittens available for adoption.

As the sun sets, the Great Wall's artist-in-residence group, Bandaloop, will perform a cat-themed aerial duet on the Great Wall, followed by the videos themselves.

Tickets to the festival are available at oaklandvidfest.eventbrite.com. Admission is $10 for adults; $5 for youths 16 and under. A limited number of VIP tickets, entitling the bearer to a beach chair in the front row, will be sold for $75.

In addition, the Oakland Museum – renamed Mew-seum for the occasion - will preview the videos on May 10, the night before the festival. Tickets are $25 and can be obtained at omcacatvidscreening.eventbrite.com. The preview will include a panel headed by Scott Stulen, Project Director of the Walker Art Center, the man who came up with the idea of a cat video festival in the first place.

"We put a press release on our blog with a call for nominations," he says. "Within two hours it had gone viral, and we ended up with more than 10,000 videos, which we narrowed down to 80."

They were inundated by requests for media credentials from all over the world, but Stulin was still unprepared for the number of peoples who turned out.

"We thought maybe a couple of dozen people would come out, get a case of beer, and watch some cat videos. But they just kept coming and coming and coming, to the point where it shut down the freeways. People were spilling out on the streets and onto the neighbors' lawns. It was the most attended, most media-covered event in the 75 years of the Walker Art Center."

Any downside?

"Only one: having to deal with the cats' agents. Yes, several of the videos have agents."